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THINK PEACE 



^ , By 
ABE CORY 

Author of "The Trail 

to the Hearts 

of Men" 



CINCINNATI 

THE STANDARD PUBLISHING 
COMPANY 



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Copyright, 1917 
The Standard Publishing Company 






MAR 15 1917 

©,:i.A455890 



DEDICATED TO 

THE PEACE ORGANIZATIONS 

OF THE WORLD 



'Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer^ 
And the battle-flags were furl'd 

In the Parliament of man, 
The Federation of the world." 



"Be at Peace." 

—Job 22:21. 

"Live in Peace." 

—2 Cor. 13:11. 

"And on Earth Peace." 

—Luke 2:14. 

"Peace I Leave with You." 

—John 14:27. 

"Grace to You and Peace." 

—Rom, 1:7 

"Preach the Gospel of Peace." 

—Rom. 10:15. 

"Follow After the Things that 
Make for Peace." 

-^Rom. 14:19. 

"God Hath Called Us to Peace." 

—1 Cor. 7: 15. 

"Follow Peace with All." 

— Heb. 12:14. 

"Love the Truth and Peace." 

— Zech. 8: 19. 
9 



THINK PEACE 

jTJ'IVE men, whose names are 

■■• familiar in the realm of 

American business, sat on the 

deck of a pleasure yacht that had 

found its way out of New York 

harbor and was headed up the 

New England coast. It was night. 

They were talking war and war 

trade, for all of them had been in 

some of the countries at war, and 

had dealt in a financial or trade 

way with the nations engaged in 

the world conflict. They had 
11 



THINK PEACE 



prognosticated the length of the 
war and discussed, incidentally, its 
causes. Some of them favored 
one nation, and some another, for 
they were not neutrals. 

One man had been silent, al- 
though he was a prominent figure 
in the group. His face marked 
the man of strength, the man who 
had battled his way to the top. 
The conversation was interrupted 
for a moment, for above them the 
wireless was flashing and crack- 
ling its way out into uncharted 
space. When the instrument 

lapsed into silence the company 
12 



THINK PEACE 



seemed to catch its spirit, and they 
waited. For some time they 
smoked on without a word, and 
then Gregory, the man who had 
said very Httle, spoke in a quiet 
and restrained voice. 

"Yes, we talk of the horrors of 
war," he said, "but we have prof- 
ited by it. We seem powerless to 
stop it, but are we? That boy 
yonder in the wireless cabin sent 
his message into the trackless 
night, but he knew that some- 
where there was a receiver for it. 
We think war, we talk war, and 

as our thougni messages leap into 
13 



THINK PEACE 



the untraversed, millions of minds 
are atuned to the thought of war, 
and the world is mad; but to- 
night, if we were to cease talking 
war, preparedness, and anti-pre- 
paredness, and think peace, what 
would happen?" 

A man with a keen face sat op- 
posite him and chopped out in 
j)ointed question: 

"But where are the receivers 
for the thought of peace? Mil- 
lions of men are thinking war, but 
who are thinking peace?" 

"Yes, that's a good question, 
Fleming — Who are thinking 



14 



THINK PEACE 



peace? Ah! there are more than 
we think, many more than we 
think," mused Gregory, half to 
the men and half to himself. 

"Where are the receivers for 
peace?" questioned the man who 
had led the discussion over the 
continuance of the war. His name 
was Emerson, and men respected 
him because of his aggressiveness 
in the business world. 

"Well, I know one," he con- 
tinued. "A few months ago I 
went out to Japan on some war 
contracts. I found that Russia 

was mixed up in it and I got per- 
15 



THINK PEACE 



mission to go across on the Trans- 
Siberian Road, and after nearly 
three weeks we dropped into Mos- 
cow. It was the time the Ger- 
mans were hammering away at 
Warsaw. Every line of communi- 
cation through Poland was air- 
tight, but it was necessary that I 
should reach some of the leaders 
at the front. I got permission, 
and with an interpreter we started 
down the choked and glutted rail- 
road. After three days we came 
close to the lines, closer than I had 
ever been. We found that it was 

necessary to go back through the 
16 



THINK PEACE 



birch forests by road. A drosky 
was commissioned by one of the 
officers. Here and there we passed 
villages filled only with women, 
and when night came on we 
stopped at the cabin of a Cossack. 
Yes, I know they are half human 
and half animal," he answered to 
the thoughts he sensed were cross- 
ing the minds of those who 
listened. "Well, I don't know how 
it was, but a woman came out. 
She had the face of the peasant, 
and she was angular, with all the 
marks that toil leaves on woman, 

but her face had lost the expres- 
17 



THINK PEACE 



sionless gaze of the peasant, for 
she came eagerly to us and asked 
if I were a doctor. You know 
American doctors have pushed 
their way with the Red Cross into 
the hearts of the Russians. When 
the interpreter said, *No,' a look 
of despair came to that woman's 
face, such as I have never yet 
seen. We went inside. I don't 
know how he got there, for he had 
come some distance, but there was 
her husband, a Cossack who had 
been woimded. Poison had en- 
tered his wound, and like a hunted 

animal he had sought his home. 
18 



THINK PEACE 



Oh, what a cabin ; small, lonely, far 
removed — hidden in the birch for- 
ests. His wife — alone. She was 
crossing herself to the Eikon that 
hung in the corner of the room. 
In an hour he died. We helped to 
bury him in a box of half-cut logs, 
and then we left her alone. No, 
I never saw her again, but I be- 
lieve I could think peace to-night 
and she'd get it. The double lines 
in France and the double lines in 
the east could not stop the tel- 
epathy of the heart on its way 
to that little cabin among the 

birches." 

19 



THINK PEACE 



''Is not she thinking war?" 
Fleming queried. 

"She? My God, no! She is 
afraid of her conquerors, as all 
women are, but to-night she is 
standing before the little image of 
the Christ on the cross, yearning 
for peace. Yes, I got her message. 
If the world could only tune its 
receivers to pick up the messages 
that are flashing across it to-night, 
it would know that the wives 
who are widowed are thinking 
peace. They are too sad for re- 
venge. The heart silences are too 

sacred for hate." 
20 



THINK PEACE 



"Yes, Emerson, you've hit it," 
said Gregory; "I know some one 
who would pick up my message of 
peace to-night." 

*'Who?" asked a man named 
Purvis. 

"Well, this is a different story," 

Gregory replied. "It happened in 

the first days of the war. My 

wife and I had been spending the 

summer in Germany. We had 

wandered from Cologne to Konigs- 

berg, from Warsaw to Munich, 

and from Berlin back to Cologne, 

and at last by chance — for I had 

said there could be no war — we had 
21 



THINK PEACE 



gone up the Rhine to Mainz. My 
wife had been educated abroad, and 
had as a friend a German girl who 
had married an officer in the Ger- 
man army. We were with them 
in the hotel at Mainz. I never saw 
two prettier kiddies than they had. 
It was the end of July, and the or- 
der came for the officer to return 
to his regiment. We left them 
alone for their last meal together, 
although their table was next to 
ours in the dining-room. The meal 
was finished, and the father lifted 
his glass to drink to the health of 

the family. His face was stream- 
22 



THINK PEACE 



ing- with tears. The children 

looked on in wonder and sobbed, 

too, but the mother smiled. The 

glasses clicked together and they 

drank. We saw him off at the 

station, and the wife alone seemed 

calm. She smiled a good-by to her 

soldier husband, and then, as the 

train pulled out of sight, she 

fainted. The children went down 

on the platform beside her, and 

as she opened her eyes they wailed 

into her ear, 'Oh, why did papa go 

away?' 'For the Fatherland,' the 

mother murmured." 

He paused in his story, but 
23 



THINK PEACE 



finally said: "He took the final 
journey in Belgium. The kiddies 
are with their mother in southern 
Germany. My wife was with them 
last month. At night the little girl 
cries, 'Why did papa go away?' 
And the mother still whispers to 
them, *For the Fatherland.' Yes, 
I know, men, that nationalism has 
its virtues and its claims, but those 
children yonder get me to-night as 
the best in me sends a message of 
peace across the world. The chil- 
dren without fathers are not calling 
for war, for they are too near the 

heart of God. True, their hearts 
24 



THINK PEACE 



can be embittered so that they will 
want war, but my message can go 
to them in every language and they 
will 'Think Peace' with me, for 
the children of the world are all 
akin. The heart of childhood 
knows only the language of love." 

Their talk was illustrated un- 
consciously by the wireless boy who 
was again sending streams of in- 
quiry into the night, and the men 
listened. 

Finally Gregory turned to his 
son who was sitting at one side of 
the group. 

"Harold," he asked, "where are 



25 



THINK PEACE 



you sending your message of 
Think Peace'?" 

In the dim light of the deck lamp 
the men could see the boy's face 
sadden. 

"I think you know, father." 

"Yes, I know, son, but tell the 
men, for they are reaching out to 
the receiving-stations to-night." 

The son stood up to tell his story. 
He was a splendidly built young 
fellow. 

"You know, men, I went to Ox- 
ford and was graduated irom Trin- 
ity College in '15. My roommate 

was a young Englishman whose 
26 



THINK PEACE 



mother lived on a country place 
down in the Devon country. His 
father was dead and this lad was 
the pride of his mother's heart. 
The call came and he went, as all 
young men should go, for a man 
can not be a slacker. When the call 
comes men must go. He went 
down on the Flanders line. I am 
young and I hardly know what 
grief is, but if you men had been 
with me in that Devon home after 
my graduation, you would never 
loan another dollar or sell another 
ounce of anything that makes for 
war. She had always appeared 



27 



THINK PEACE 



young and light-hearted, but when 
I went to see her the sadness of the 
ages was in her face. There was 
no waiHng, only a great longing in 
her eyes, but it was a longing that 
makes my heart stop now. It was 
the sorrow of the human and the 
eternal. She talked about a thou- 
sand things, but it was the son of 
whom she was thinking. I know I 
thought of him constantly, when I 
was with her. She wants England 
to win and says she would give a 
hundred sons, but always there is 
the question, Was there not an- 
other way with honor?' 'Could 



28 



THINK PEACE 



not all the nations have seen jus- 
tice triumph without the pain of 
war?' She is thinking peace to- 
night, not for her own sake, but 
for the sake of the mothers of 
every nation, that they may be 
spared the sorrow that will haunt 
her to the end. I am only a young- 
ster compared with you men, but to 
every home in Europe I can send 
a message that will reach the 
mothers, who in dumbness of pain 
are asking, 'Is there not another 
way?' 'Should not the sons of 
women build rather than destroy ?" 

One of the men who had profited 
29 



THINK PEACE 



most financially from the war, and 
who had listened with wider eyes 
than any, was the man named Pur- 
vis. 

"Men, you haven't it yet." He 
spoke quietly. "You are right 
when you say there are receivers 
for peace, but you have missed it 
when you think that the mothers, 
wives and children are the only 
ones thinking peace. Listen, men," 
he said as he pulled himself to his 
feet ; "every man on a stifling sub- 
marine; every man in the dirty, 
crawling trenches ; every man hud- 
dled into a train ; every man who is 
30 



THINK PEACE 



aiming a gun from some sheltered 
hill; every man who flies by night 
and drops a hellish bomb — is in his 
inner soul crying for peace. I have 
two illustrations. You know I 
have been to the front in two 
countries, and the honor of silence 
is upon me as to locality, but in one 
of the ditches on the western line 
two wounded soldiers from oppo- 
site lines were thrown together, 
one from Austria and one from 
France. Bits of shell had opened 
their channels of blood, and life was 
ebbing. 'Comrade, I am sorry,' 

gasped the French soldier in broken 
31 



THINK PEACE 



German. 'Ah, I could die gladly if 
I could know that I had not caused 
your death,' poured out the Aus- 
trian soldier. Death was near, and 
the French soldier flung out his 
hand until it fell on the face of the 
Austrian, and in convulsive breath 
he moaned, 'Here's to Peace.' The 
French sergeant who was watch- 
ing, turned his face away, but I 
saw that it was working with grief. 
When he turned to minister to the 
dying men he whispered, 'Here's 
to Peace.' No thought for himself 
was in that call, for the next day 
peace eternal was his, and it came 



32 



THINK PEACE 



because of unusual risk. He was 
thinking of France. He knew, as 
the soldier of every land knows, 
that victory can mean nothing un- 
less this carnage ends quickly. 
They found a letter which he had 
written to his wife. *A rain of 
shell is falling on us,' he wrote. 
*Our kitchen and provisions were 
cannonaded all night. The field 
kitchens no longer arrive. Oh, if 
only the end were in sight ! — Peace ! 
Peace! — is the cry on every man's 
lips.'* Men, the highest qualities 
of which every land boasts are, 

•See the May number of Scribner's Magazine, 
p. 543, 

33 



THINK PEACE 



patriotism, love of home, love of 
the glories of education and relig- 
ion — and I know that these quali- 
ties are calling for peace from mil- 
lions of noble hearts, but even these 
qualities, the best of earth's ac- 
complishments, will die if this hell- 
ish war continues." He was silent 
for a moment. 

"I was over in Asia Minor," he 
continued, "and one day in one of 
the darkened streets of a town, in 
back of the lines, I came upon a 
turbaned Moharhmedan. One look 
revealed to me that he was a sol- 
dier and the next that he was blind. 
34 



THINK PEACE 



You know I have lived in Constan- 
tinople for many years, and I talk 
a mongrel Turkish. 'Why has the 
light gone out of your eyes?' I in- 
quired. 'War; cursed be war,' he 
hissed between his teeth. 'And you 
will be glad when peace comes?' I 
asked. He hesitated a moment, 
and then his face found the east, 
as he whispered: Teace, Peace — 
Allah, Allah— Praise be to Allah.' " 
"Yes, but I am afraid that this 
half of the world is not thinking 
peace," said Fleming, after a 
moment. 

"There are more than you 
35 



THINK PEACE 



think," answered Lawrence, who 
was the least important in the 
group, but he spoke with feeling. 
"Men, think of the citizens of the 
United States who have sons, 
brothers, fathers, cousins and 
nephews yonder in the trenches. 
This war is coming closer to some 
of us than you realize. It was 
about eight years ago that a young 
German came to New York on a 
scholarship furnished by the Gov- 
ernment for foreign study. My 
sister was at Columbia when they 
met, loved and married. He never 

became a citizen of the United 
Z6 



THINK PEACE 



States. They had a home here and 
one in Germany, but they were here 
when the war came. Words can 
not describe that parting, for every 
human tie was here, but duty was 
there. He went. The wife and 
children are here now. There must 
be another way. I am not pro- 
German in my sympathies, but as 
long as that splendidly trained 
young fellow is over there in the 
trenches we are going to want 
peace. When we think of the 
heart-ties that are binding America 
to the Old World, we ought not to 
be partisan, no matter where our 



37 



THINK PEACE 



friends are. We should be citizens 
of the world." 

When the silence which followed 
was finally broken, it was by the 
quiet question of a practical busi- 
ness man. 

"But how?" he asked. "Will it 
not go on until all the men are 
killed, or until exhaustion or star- 
vation ends it all?" 

"No, that will not win," returned 

Gregory, speaking again. "The 

desire of the world alone can win. 

The world leaders inspired the 

world with the desire for war. 

They thought war and it came. It 
38 



THINK PEACE 



will last as long as America won- 
ders what will happen to its busi- 
ness if the war should end quickly. 
On our lips we deprecate the war, 
but in our hearts do not many of 
us dread its end because of the ef- 
fect on business? It will last as 
long as the world sees red." 

"What about the rulers of the 
warring nations?" asked Fleming. 

"They are human too," answered 

the other. "In the beginning they 

thought only of the glories of war, 

but now, with their sons and their 

countries' sons going down in the 

red burial of battle, they would 
39 



THINK PEACE 



stop it, but they are largely held 
back from negotiating peace *by 
what the world would think/ " 

"Ah! that men could kill ambi- 
tious hate," yearned the voice of 
Gregory's son. 

"There is only one way, son," re- 
turned the father, "and that is to 
kill the thought of hate by thinking 
peace." 

The silence that followed was a 

long one. Each man was thinking 

long, long thoughts of the world 

and its woe. They looked at the 

flag which floated in the dim light 

from the masthead, and each knew 
40 



THINK PEACE 



that he would give his fortune, his 

Hfe, and his children's lives for its 

protection, for there are no better 

patriots than men of great affairs. 

Each knew, too, the effect of 

thoug-ht in business; why not so 

with the world at war ? "Oh, if we 

could only help," was the silent 

wish of all. 

Finally one after another arose 

and passed quietly to his cabin, 

and Gregory was left alone. He 

went and stood at the yacht's rail 

and watched the waters as they 

went by. As he stood there he 

seemed to catch from the very 
41 



THINK PEACE 



winds the desires of the world. 

They came to him, not in language 

famihar, but from heart depths 

that had paid the remission price 

of peace. He looked into the stars 

and acknowledged that he had 

helped to continue the war not only 

through trade, but he had talked 

war, had thought war, and had 

wished for victory for the side with 

which he had dealt. Was that 

right? His mind had been one of 

the receivers of war. "It can not, 

must not, go on," he proclaimed to 

the night wind, "and when peace 

comes it must be right. Every man 
42 



THINK PEACE 



and nation must have the right to 
trade, to live and to grow, and none 
must perish." 

The grip of business had fallen 
from him and he was reaching out 
— out into the Eternal. Never had 
he sensed the other world so clearly. 
He knew that from the Eternal he 
was receiving his message of peace. 
Hate, murder and revenge held no 
place with him. From somewhere 
came a verse long forgotten — "As 
a man thinketh in his heart so is 
he," and then it seemed to be para- 
phrased and he felt the Eternal 

saying, "As the world thinketh in 
43 



THINK PEACE 



its heart so is it." Think war, and 
the world runs red. Think peace, 
and the deepest motives of hearts 
that know respond and peace must 
come. Kings, emperors, and the 
powers that be, must yield to the 
desires of the world's heart. 

A voice interrupted his thought. 
It was the wireless boy. 

"Any messages before you re- 
tire, sir?" he inquired. 

"Yes, this one. Send out this 
message — 'Think Peace, Think 
Peace.' " 

"To whom, sir?" 

"To the receivers that are 
44 



THINK PEACE 



atuned." The boy was gone. 

Gregory waited. The biting 
sparks broke the silence. 

"Yes, it is going to you, Cossack 
wife; to you, German children; to 
you, soldier in the trench; to you, 
cultured British mother; to you, 
Turkish soldier from whom the 
light has gone out ; to you, O heart 
atuned to the Eternal, wherever 
you may be. We will think peace, 
and victory will be ours where 
murderous guns have brought only 
defeat and woe." 



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